The Basics

Twitter is a service for friends, family and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What's happening? It also serves as an RSS reader of sorts, with feeds from news organizations and blogs showing up as tweets. You get information into your personal Twitter page by following other Twitterers.

A hashtag looks like this: #ilm. It consists of a pound sign followed by a short term that allows users to search for tweets by a common term. We've created the #ilm tag for any tweets about the Wilmington, N.C., area.

From reading news on the go to joining a nationwide conversation, Twitter offers more than just updates on what your nephew had for breakfast (though chances are you'll learn that, too). Find out more from Better Living Magazine.